2010's Ten Memorable Theater Moments You Might Have Missed 2011/01/01 Page 2

2010's Ten Memorable Theater Moments You Might Have Missed 2011/01/01 Page 2

Nice Way to Start 2011: Signs of Life Makes Broadway World.Com's list of "2010's Ten Memorable Theater Moments You Might Have Missed!" To quote:

"Members of the Freedom Party, who protested outside Broadway performances of The Scottsboro Boys, passed out flyers that asked, "Where is the song and dance musical about gas chambers?" Well, if they had ventured Off-Broadway this year they would have found it in Signs of Life, Peter Ullian, Len Schiff and Joel Derfner's musical drama about the Theresienstadt concentration camp; the Nazi's "City For The Jews," which was intended to appear as a safe and nurturing artist colony when inspected by the Red Cross. A musical-within-the-musical scene had Jewish prisoners, under the threat of being sent to the death camp of Auschwitz, partaking in a merry theatrical jamboree. With so many still under the impression that adding song and dance can only trivialize serious issues, it was a daring move for the creators of this ambitious musical."

Read more: http://broadwayworld.com/article/2010s_Ten_Memorable_Theater_Moments_You_Might_Have_Missed_20010101_page2#ixzz19nvS8Bzt

What I Learned About Playwriting From My Dad

Last night, I had a dream about my Dad, Dr. Robert Ullian, who passed away in 2005. I said to my wife, Michele, this morning, how much I wished he'd had a chance to see my show, Signs of Life, which just ended its five week run on March 21st. Michele said, of course, that he had.

Many survivors who saw our show, which takes place in the Jewish ghetto Terezin during World War Two, remarked upon how many details we managed to get right. A few took issue with details we got wrong -- usually deliberately, when the requirements of dramatic narrative took precedence over those of documentary. But for the most part, people who were actually imprisoned in Terezin were very generous and understanding about our efforts to balance truth and fiction, and most felt we got the balance just about right.

To the extent we got anything right, it's because we are good listeners. The most telling and remarkable details, such as the romantic gift of a home-made toilet seat, we learned about from interviews with survivors, not from books.

This ability to listen is something I owe very much to my Dad. Dr. Robert Ullian, a primary care physician who referred to himself as a simple country doctor (even though he practiced medicine in Cambridge and Boston), was widely considered to be one of the best diagnosticians in New England by his peers. When people asked him how he achieved this, his answer was simple: he listened to his patients.

To find out what critics and audiences said about Signs of Life, click here.

To visit the Signs of Life website, click here.

To find out more about Signs of Life off-Broadway, click here.

To visit the Signs of Life Facebook page, click here.

To visit Peter Ullian's Website, click here.

To find Peter Ullian's "Fan" Page on Facebook, click here.

To follow Peter Ullian on Twitter, click here.

To read Signs of Life lyricist Len Schiff's blog, click here.

To visit Signs of Life composer Joel Derfner's website, click here.

To read Signs of Life composer Joel Derfner's blog, click here.

To visit Signs of Life director Jeremy Dobrish's website, click here.

The Past Really is a Foreign Country.

"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." L.P Hartley, The Go-Between.

So, it turns out the past really is a foreign country.

I wasn't at all surprised that I'd have a lot of research to do in writing the libretto for SIGNS OF LIFE: A Tale of Terezin, which takes place in Czechoslovakia during World War Two. But it's amazing how many little things come up that require tracking down.

Here's a few:

When did the terms "Molotov Cocktail," "canoodle," and "throttle" come into being? (1940, 1859, and sometime in the 15th century, it turns out.)

And guess what? Writing about the recent past can be just as tricky.

While I don't consider myself a "political" writer, political issues and current events intrude into my plays a lot, since it's only natural that such events would be on the minds of characters living through them. I've discovered that with some of my "contemporary" plays, this requires either constant updating, which is a huge pain, or a certain vagueness, which is . . . well, vague. Perhaps as a result of this frustration, I was recently inspired to try to address the recent past in my plays. This allows me to delve into contemporary life and issues, but in a specific historical context that doesn't require constant updating.

Sounds easy, right? Not so much, it turns out.

When not working on SIGNS OF LIFE, I've been working a cycle of (I think) five plays, that take place from the election of 2000 through the election of 2008. One would think I'd remember details about this period, during which I was an adult who paid pretty close attention to the world around me.

But it's amazing how quickly details escape the memory. For example, I remember using a cell phone in the year 2000. But did cellphones have built-in speaker phones at that time? I don't think mine did, and I'm having a hard time finding out if any did. Even Wikipedia didn't help.

Another example: a character of mine made a disparaging remark about Facebook in a play that takes place in 2003. Yeah, you guessed it: there was no Facebook in 2003. So, now the character makes no such remark.

When Shaw wrote Arms and the Man in 1894, did he have this kind of trouble writing about events that took place less than a decade earlier? Or is the fast pace of technological change in the internet age the cause of my vexation?

Now, one might ask: do any of these details really matter? Is Julius Caesar any less of a play because one of the characters mentions a clock tower, something that hadn't been invented during the age of Caesar?

The answer is, of course not. But critics give Shakespeare a pass. They claim his anachronisms are intentional! The rest of us aren't so lucky. I once had a critic complain that the American flags featured in my depression-era musical ELIOT NESS IN CLEVELAND contained fifty stars, at a time when our nation's flag boasted only forty-eight. (I have always been amazed at this critic's ability to count so fast. The flags were only on stage for a moment. But critics do have amazing superpowers.)

So, we do our best as we navigate the foreign country we call the past.

See SIGNS OF LIFE: A Tale of Terezin off-Broadway, February 16-March 21, produced by Amas Musical Theatre!

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Signs of Life: A Tale of Terezin Part Two: Origins

In 1998, I was one of three playwrights (along with Alice Tuan and Carlos Murillo) commissioned to write one-person plays for the En Garde Arts production A SECRET HISTORY OF THE LOWER EAST SIDE, performed on the rooftop of Seaward Park High School. En Garde Arts, for those of you who weren't around in NYC in the 1990s, was one of the most important, and exciting, theatre companies in the city at that time. They were famous for creating "site-specific" theatre works, in warehouses, street corners, abandoned theatres, and pretty much anywhere else that could accommodate (not always comfortably) actors and an audience. I loved working with them. Writing a play to be performed outside of an actual theatre put me in touch in an exciting and eye-opening way with the essence of the theatrical experience: actor, audience, space, and language. Plus, they were great people to work with.

In 1997, En Garde Arts had produced a show, Sweet Theresienstadt, in Prague. Theresienstadt was the Czech town designated as "Hitler's City for the Jews." Thesresienstadt, or Terezin as it is known to the Czech people, became a repository for "Jewish Prominenten:" Europe's most prominent Jewish intellectuals, war heroes, artists, musicians, actors, composers and well-to-do. The Nazis permitted the Jews of Terezin to create visual art, operas, cabarets, and symphonies. They showed off the ghetto to the Red Cross, and made a propaganda film (The Führer Gives the Jews a City), all designed to fool the world into thinking that Hitler's intentions for European Jewry were benign. In reality, the camp was overcrowded and disease-ridden. The inmates were undernourished, and the transports east to the Auschwitz death camp were frequent. More than 140,000 Jews passed through Terezin. More than 100,000 perished, including over 10,000 children.

For various legal reasons, En Garde Arts was unable to bring Sweet Theresienstadt to the US. Anne Hamburger, founder and Executive Producer of En Garde Arts, remained intrigued by the subject matter, however. She approached me about writing the libretto to a brand-new musical theatre piece on the same subject. Since I hadn't seen Sweet Theresienstadt (which hadn't been translated into English), I felt I could approach the subject from a fresh and original perspective.

Aside from the obvious dramatic potential, and the challenge of helping to bring to theatre-goers this lesser-known episode in the history of the Shoah, the subject intrigued me for another reason. Some of my own family had been sent to Terezin, including my great-great uncle, Joseph De Leeuw, along with his wife and his daughter, Lucy. Of the three, only Lucy survived the war.

Anne and I had several meetings with a composer/lyricist team, and the project looked good to go.

And then En Garde Arts shut down. As it turned out, SECRET HISTORY was to be the final En Garde Arts production. Anne assured me this wasn't my fault; the decision to shut down the company had nothing to do with SECRET HISTORY, which met box office expectations. I was relieved to know I had not done to En Garde Arts what Michael Cimino had done to United Artists.

Anne Hamburger went on to become the Artistic Director of La Jolla Playhouse, where she helped bring the original productions of both Thoroughly Modern Millie and Spring Awakening to the the stage. She followed this up with an eight-year stint as Executive Vice President of Walt Disney Creative Entertainment, and recently founded her own production company, Big Heart Theatrical.

I went on to re-write the libretto to my musical, ELIOT NESS IN CLEVELAND, previously produced at the Directors Company in NYC and at the Denver Center Theatre Company, and subsequently produced at the Cleveland Playhouse, under the direction of David Esbjornson. I also wrote the libretto for FLIGHT OF THE LAWNCHAIR MAN, which was then directed by Harold Prince at both the Prince Music Theatre in Philadelphia and the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, and then later directed by Lynne Taylor-Corbett at Goodspeed Musicals and 37 Arts in NYC.

Most importantly, during Michael J. Fox's farewell episode of Spin City, my wife, Michele, emerged from the bathroom waving an EPT stick and informed me that she was pregnant with our first child.

But the subject of Terezin wasn't finished with me, just yet.

As it turned out, Virginia Criste, a lawyer from California, had also been interested in producing a musical theatre piece about Terezin. Her own grandparents were sent to a death camp on one of the final transports from Terezin, and she had been traveling to Prague and Terezin even before the collapse of the Communist regime to research the subject. Virginia and Anne Hamburger had discussed co-producing the American premiere of Sweet Theresienstadt. When that production never happened, they too went their separate ways. But when Virginia decided to commission and produce a musical theatre piece set in Terezin on her own, she asked Anne to recommend a writer.

Anne, ever generous to emerging talent -- and also a woman of considerable taste and fine artistic judgment (he said humbly) -- recommended me.

Stay tuned for: "SIGNS OF LIFE: A Tale of Terezin Part Three: Origins, Chapter Two."

Click here or more info on the upcoming production of SIGNS OF LIFE: A Tale of Terezin.

Click here for more info on the history and development of SIGNS OF LIFE: A Tale of Terezin.

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SIGNS OF LIFE: A Tale of Terezin, Part One: The Balancing Act

Auditions for my new musical (lyrics by Len Schiff, music by Joel Derfner, directed by Jeremy Dobrish) SIGNS OF LIFE: A Tale of Terezin begin this week. I may not be able to attend auditions, due to my parenting duties. Fortunately, I have reliable collaborators whom I trust (see above). This is essential. I live sixty miles north of New York City, and it's very hard to drop the kids off at school, schlep into the city, and make it back in time to pick them up by 3:10pm. And playwriting is not one of those professions that produces a lot of extra cash lying around for nannies. My Mom has been good enough to come down from time to time to help out, and my wife, Michele, works from home when she can if I've got something I need to be in the city for.

A couple of years ago, I had a production of my musical FLIGHT OF THE LAWNCHAIR MAN at Goodspeed Musicals in Connecticut. It took me about two hours to drive there. For the duration of rehearsals, I took care of the kids during the week, and Michele took care of them on the weekend. I drove to Goodspeed early every Saturday, arriving by 10am for rehearsals. I stayed in CT overnight, attended rehearsals on Sunday, drove back to the Hudson Valley every Sunday night, and taking care of the kids again starting Monday. I dealt with re-writes and other productions issues via e-mail during the week. Once the show opened, my family joined me in CT on the weekends. It worked out pretty well.

The thing is, even if I could afford a nanny, I wouldn't want one. The time I've spent with my kids has been the best time of my life. Still, I wouldn't mind having a nanny on call, whom I could engage for specific dates. Like the auditions this week.

The next few months will be a tricky balancing act. My Mom is generously coming down from MA to help out for important rehearsals and previews. But there's still a few dates I haven't got covered yet.

But the thing of it is, as frustrating as the balancing act and the diminutive financial reward can be, I've got nothing to complain about. I get to do two of my favorite things in the world: write plays and be a dad. Which is a very excellent thing.

Because, really, I'm not that good at doing much else.

Click here for more info the upcoming production of SIGNS OF LIFE.

Click here for more info on the history and development of SIGNS OF LIFE.

Click here for more info on my musical FLIGHT OF THE LAWNCHAIR MAN.

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